I overheard a group of BRPD officers, waiting to testify in court, I was waiting as well, talking & after talking on his radio, one officer turned to the others and say "boy, District 6 has a bunch of dog killers". The others all laughed.

quote:If you could read then you would see where I stated that we don't know all the facts. We only know what the OP put. I am a cop and have been for a long time. The perception that most of you retards have isn't even close to what the truth.

I have an Uncle that was a police officer and a brother who is a State Attorney so he deals with cops all the time. The perception most of these "rantards" have is not close to the truth, you're right. The truth is worse.

Your family must deal with a bad department then. That is the problem. I get blamed and put in the same group as a cop that has no business being a cop. We have these towns all over the south an it is scary that some of these guys carry guns. I am glad that my department, for the most part, hires intelligent, honest hard working men and women.

That's the real issue, IMO. Having a bad apple is one thing, the real problem is the level of protection departments offer to their own "bad apples," to the point of complicity, so that you rarely see officers held accountable for their actions. Too often officers are permitted to act outside of the very laws they're entrusted to enforce.

In other words, of course you're going to have officers that are screw-ups, are incompetent, or they're just outright a-holes and have no business occupying a position of authority, but it's the failure of departments and their officers to take not only the initiative, but the responsibility, to see that such officers are not only held accountable for their mistakes and transgression, but are removed as quickly as possible.

The root of the problem is simple economics. Cops don't get good pay, and there is no need for a degree, so as a whole, it will not attract relatively bright people. The problem is the people won't want to increase their pay because most don't think they do a good job and deserve it.

Also, the general rule is that the competent police get promoted pretty quickly to departments where they are not on patrol or on the road. This results in the incompetent officers (the ones still on the road) having the most interaction with the people, and as a result they are the officers that the public opinion is based off of. Most people have never interacted with a detective or a juvenile or narcotics officer, while nearly everyone has interacted with a road officer.

We have plenty of other measures that deal with bad cops that I won't discuss pubicly. . Our department doesn't put up or do we hide bad apples. Comparing it to the Catholic Church isn't fair because that is one big organization. I can't help if some small town/city/county/parish hires a bad apple against our recommendation. One town close to ours has plenty of officers we fired in higher up positions. We told them what they were hiring and they did it anyway.

Cpt Bengal, I have two guys with masters and most of the guys have at least 2 yr degrees if not 4.